Boston Bob wrote:Paul: Here's my take on new features to VRS. Live bait gets a 10 from me and a river or two would be great too.

Now here's where I might differ from your other users: I personally feel that RWFF got away from you when you allowed everyone to addtheir personal outings to the game. Now, I'm not against adding lakes etc. but you should have control over the add ons. I want themto be as good as the original and you would have to admit that some outings in RWFF fell below a set standard. Now I haven't been addingany outings from RWFF since I have been fishing VRS and there are probably 30 or more outings now. This is way to much for anyone to absorb much less fish. How can you possibly fish over 100 outings in RWFF. All I'm trying to say is to keep the add ons to VRS under your control.

I probably should have let you know my feelings on this personally but if the Bass fishermen and women in this game came from RWFF they would knowwhat I'm talking about.

Hey, that's what this forum is all about, telling others and Paul how you feel.

My best always and tight lines....Boston Bob

I total agree. Most of the last RWFF custom outings I havn't download anymore, because they are really bad. Some points:

1) First of all: Wrong casting perspective, respectively wrong pics. Has anybody flyfish from a 30 meter high bridge or from a helicopter?2) Too easy to catch trophies. Catching the big ones should be a highlight and not a every day experience.3) Crazy locations: "Swedish Rivers", "Fishing Scotland", "Fishing Bulgaria" and so on.. What's that? Which rivers are meant? I don't like fish a simple collection of pics, but real exist waters.4) Bad quality of the used pictures. Blurred without contrast.

Now there are about 150 custom outings, but only a few of high quality.

Customs outings for VRS should avoid these dilemma. Fishsim has found a good way. All addons must be send to the author. He check it and release it as validated outing.

Interesting perspective - thanks for sharing that, Boston Bob and Pitti. I've struggled with the issue of the content kit for RWFF. I know some people have done very careful work, following the guidelines to the letter, received permission from guides and others to use fish photos, and they've produced some excellent outings. Some other outings were clearly made from assorted photos people already had on hand, or even from pictures downloaded from the web, in which case I also worry about whether the owner of those photographs has given their permission.

So the downside of releasing the kit is that the quality of custom work will vary greatly. Of course the upside is that those who are really into the game have the chance to contribute to its growth. The challenge is to have that opportunity without giving up the quality. That's an interesting idea about having the publisher (me in this case) review and approve each custom add-on. My fear is that before long I could be reviewing several new add-ons every week and I wouldn't have time to work on new functionality for the games.

It's not as though we wouldn't want people to be able to create any add-on they feel like and share their work, so if someone wants to fish an outing with fanciful scenery and impossibly large fish they can do that. But we don't want people to get frustrated when they look for new realistic add-ons done according to the guidelines either. So maybe what we need is some sort of rating system. I've seen that done on a site with add-on aircraft for a flight simulator, and with vehicle add-ons for a driving game. Anyone who downloads an add-on can rate it based on several factors, and on the downloads list you could sort add-ons by average rating.

In the case of an add-on for a fishing game, I think we'd want to rate the realism of the fishing (based on the quantity, types and sizes of fish) and the quality of the map and scenery (or photography in the case of RWFF.) I could add some new "official" add-ons for VR Sportfishing that would always be accessible from the Pishtech downloads page, but also have a site where people could post links to their custom add-ons and where others could download and rate them.

Quick follow-up: We should keep in mind that not everybody wants the same thing from a game add-on. I for one like the fact that you can download outings where you're sure to find lots of huge fish, and others where a trophy is a rare catch. On the sites I mentioned where I used to download cars and aircraft, I downloaded some for their realism and others for the fantasy of a super-fast vehicle. I think the important thing is making sure people know what they're getting when they pick a file to download, and can find the types of of content that they enjoy, whether that's a realistic challenge or a fishing fantasy.

Well all I know is I cant wait for a lake editor for this game. I know my favorite lake like the back of my hand and I cant wait to recreate it in this game. Going to be a lot of fun and I hope it gets done soon! Although we could use a few new species in order for the lake to be completely accurate. It would be amazing to have a shot at a 50" musky.

Dear Peter,After reading yours and Boston Bobs comments and already owning up to mistakes I have done in outing creation in the past I am in agreement with you both on the perfect outing, perfect pictures,perfect currents etc, and I wait in expectation for this outing to appear and I hope one of you creates this outing, soon I hope, until then I have spoken to Paul and Richard and removed all links to outings I have created so that they do not offend any more virtual fisherfolk and send my apologies to all members who take this game to be real life and not a fishing simulator which used to be a pleasure to try to enhance and let members of the club fish far off locations from the comfort of thier own chair.I wish you all the best in the future and hope you find the Utopia you seek.Regards Martin.

that's aren't good news. I know you have very much fun while creating outings, and I don't want banish you! Rather I would like to see more outings from you, based on some regulation like above. You are very assiduous, but perhaps it's better not to build 10 outings in 4 weeks, but only one really nice one. This means a quality like the originals from Paul. Real exists waters with only pics from that River I like very much. I live in Berlin and virtual travels around the world via RWFF satisfy my imagination. You know what I mean? But Paul is right if he said, there is place for every addon. Anybody has different desire. That's right!

So I hope you can forgive my harsh words and you stay in our RWFF boat anymore. If you comes sometime to Berlin, I will pay for some rounds beer, ok?

Martin: I am addressing this to you because you personally took to heart what Peter and I had to say about the custom add-ons to RWFF. If you would re-read my post, it was addressed to Paul. I was not singling out any creator of custom outings and I agree with Peter that you should not stop creating outings at all. If what the newer members of RWFF want are many outings then that's what should be happening because It is the members game. Everybody has a choice of what he wants and likes to fish and download in any game. Paul said that there is a place for all the outings and I agree with him.

I was probably the only spinning rod, Bass fisherman in RWFF and at times I felt I was out of my element. I hung in there enjoyed the game, competed in all the contests I could and very much enjoyed the fellowship of people from all around the world. I read the RWFF forum now and then and I'm very happy to see it is being rejuvenated with newer members. I very much liked and fished many of the custom outings. I realize that it took a lot of time and effort to create an outing and I would not have the expertise to do so. I just got so overwhelmed with so many new outings I lost interest in the game. I never had the time to download all the outings never mind fishing them That's me personally, one member not a consensus. What two members think should not constitute a mandate. This forum is made up of people from all over the globe and that's what makes it Great! Having different opinions is a way of life and neither Peter or I were meaning for anyone to stop enjoying the game.

In my post I was asking Paul to have some control over the VRS custom lakes created by members but he made a good point that if he had to review every add on, he wouldn't have time to work on anything else. I would like to suggest a way that members could choose to download new content for VRS. If every creator of a new lake, river or whatever gave a description of exactly what his outing contained, where this body of water was from, what species of fish were located here etc., then anyone could make a reasonable decision on whether or not they wanted to download and fish this water.

Scottish Warrior, I hope this came through correctly, I feel I'm having as much trouble with this as Pitti was and this is my language. Martin if you come to Boston let me know and we'll share a single malt or two.

A: Several more lakes 5B: A river or two 8C: A lake editor so you could add your own 10D: More speices of fish 9E: Live bait 7F: Fly fishing 1G: The ability to walk or wade 6

more species would be intresting like some carp, muskie, flatheads and blue catfish, lakers, landlock salmon, also some bank fishing will be cool so you can target carp, catfish and pannies, with the use of organic bait you can add a slip float set it to what ever distance you want and fish. with the lake editor you can create your favourite local fishing hole choose the species and how big they get. a river would be intresting there you can add steelhead, catfish, salmon, drum and maybe even a odd sturgeon or two. also you should be able to troll with using the trolling motor like and option when you fishing were you set out a lure and troll. also with live bait lures like worm harnesses and floats would be cool with different float styles to buy, like the red and white clips, slips, and those big carboynite floats. so yeah thats my idea.

A: Several more lakes 0 ( way rather have a few more rivers)B: A river or two 10 ( in real life river fishing is fun, so why not in a fishing game?)C: A lake editor so you could add your own 0 (its already out! or is it?)D: More speices of fish 10 (to go with the rivers you need some catfish,drum, and sturgeon. make sure there is some smallmouth!)E: Live bait 10 (you cant use lures to catch catfish!)F: Fly fishing 1 (thats what RWFF is for)G: The ability to walk or wade 8 ( no comment)

A record book for each lake would be a nice improvement - I agree. It's on the list of things to add in future updates, and maybe someday we can have an automatic online record system too, so for each skill level you could see the largest fish of each species anybody has caught in each lake.

More species are definitely in the plans for the game. Which fish would you most like to see added? Striped bass? Different panfish? Blue/channel/flathead Catfish?

I'll add a screenshot system to the list of things to research. If there's a straightforward way I can do it, it would be sweet to be able to just hit a key and have the game create a file with the screenshot. If so it could also render that frame with all the options maxed out, so even if you have the draw distance turned down or number of trees reduced, you could get a screen shot with full detail.

Yes, you should be able to have a large quantity of any one lure. You still have to select the lure again after a breakoff (click "next lure" and it should bring you back to what you were using before, I believe), but you should have whatever quantity you've bought. I'll do some testing to make sure there isn't a bug in that function.